History of CETSA
In 2013 we published the first paper describing the transformative Cellular Thermal Shift Assay (CETSA, Martinez Molina, Science, 41:84). CETSA constitutes the first broadly applicable method to assess direct drug binding in cells and tissues. The method has had a big impact in drug discovery and is now being broadly applied in academia and industry to improve efficiency and quality of drug candidates and has the potential to serve as an important clinical diagnostic for drug efficacy in the future. Recently we have published papers demonstrating that CETSA constitutes a highly resolved means to study interactions of proteins with other cellular components in intact cells and tissues at the proteome level. This approach gives a completely novel perspective on how cellular processes are executed and we predict that it will have a very big impact on understanding disease processes and drug action in the future. The method also constitutes a way to uncover novel drug targets and therapeutic biomarkers with future applications in cancer therapy.
Principal Investigator
inventor/founder
Pär Nordlund
Pär Nordlund is originally a structural biologist at Nanyang Technological University as well as at Karolinska Institute, Sweden. His research is focused on establishing structural and mechanistic insights into disease related proteins, with a particular emphasis on proteins in cancer, inflammation and infectious disease. His groups currently work on on understanding cancer processes in models and clinical material, including cancer drug action and resistance development. His teams have also developed protein-centered approaches for generating cancer drugs. Based on technologies and innovations from his groups, they have founded two promising biotech companies developing cancer therapies, Sprint Bioscience (Nasdaq First North, Stockholm) and DotBio Pharma (NUS campus, Singapore).
Pär Nordlund is a member of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute and the Chemistry Class at the Swedish Academy of Science, as well as a Reviewing Editor at Science Magazine. He is the funder of the biotech companies Evitra Proteoma AB, Sprint Biosciences AB and Pelago Bioscience AB.
Pär Nordlund is currently affiliated to Nanyang Technological University and Karolinska Institutet. He also holds a joint PI position at the Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology.